President's Letter

I am delighted to welcome my wife, Betsy Amster, as a guest columnist for this issue. Betsy spoke to the class of 1964 during Alumni Weekend, and I thought a selection of her observations from that day would be a fitting way to mark the new academic year. — Barry Glassner

Hunter Franks B.A. ’08 founded the League of Creative Interventionists, a global network that uses creativity to build community.

Alumni Books

Van Landingham Antidote

Corey Van Landingham B.A. ’08, a Wallace Stegner Poetry Fellow at Stanford, offers a collection of poetry in which “the uncanny coexists with the personal, so that each poem undergoes making and unmaking, is birthed and bound in an acute strangeness.” The book won the Ohio State University Press/The Journal Award in Poetry.

Ohio State University Press, 2013. 63 pages.

Runckel Assignment Vietnam: Coming Full Circle As a Soldier, Diplomat, and Businessman

Chris Runckel J.D. ’74, who experienced the Vietnam War and its aftermath, describes how he built bridges and worked with U.S. and Vietnamese diplomats, businessmen, and others to build a new path for both countries.

Kathryn McKinney B.A. ’75, a former Outdoor School and 5th/6th–grade teacher, pens a collection of poems that “chronicle a lifetime spent in the company of and in communion with nature.”

Dancing Moon Press, 2013. 74 pages.

Running Medicine Wheel

Kelly Running B.S. ’79 writes a mystery in the Lizzy O’Malley series. In this volume, a murder interrupts Lizzy’s work as a stage manager for her brother’s Shakespeare company. Her efforts to clear his name lead to an odyssey of Navajo visions, sweat lodges, medicine wheels, and mysticism.

David Howitt J.D. ’94 shares his own story, along with those of other modern-day entrepreneurs, to illuminate simple principles that will help us “weave business into our spiritual narratives and pour our souls into our professions.”

Ron Kelemen B.S. ’73, who has more than 30 years’ experience as a financial advisor, offers “a financial road map of practical action steps you can take to become confident about a secure and fulfilling second half of your life.”

Confident Vision Press, 2013. 144 pages.

Boire Self-Defense for Seniors

Ken Boire M.P.A. ’79 presents a self-defense strategy developed specifically for seniors. Even though physical abilities tend to decay with age, Boire says any senior can make up for these deficits with his techniques.

Outskirts Press, 2014. 236 pages.

Boyer Mending the Net: A Guide to Healing Self and Family

Katherine Boyer M.A. ’90 offers a guide for healing old wounds and transmuting the negative into the positive. “Even if you grew up in a dysfunctional family, you can create a healthy family.”

Blue Jay Press, 2014. 162 pages.

Lundgren The Facades

Eric Lundgren B.A. ’00 pens an existential mystery about a disconsolate legal clerk’s search for his missing opera star wife. The book was named a finalist for the 2014 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and it was selected as a Publishers Weekly Best Fiction Book of 2013.

Overlook, 2013. 224 pages.

Schultz Torment Saint: The Life of Elliott Smith

William Todd Schultz B.S. ’85 writes a biography of the enigmatic Elliott Smith, one of the most gifted songwriters of the 1990s, who died violently in 2003 under what some believe to be questionable circumstances.

Bloomsbury U.S.A., 2013. 368 pages.

Clark San Juan Island Stories

Wendy Lynn Clark B.A. ’01 offers an anthology of five previously published stories, including bonus introductions, that focus on five women who “rediscover their breath-taking first loves” in the lush San Juan Islands.

Photo Galleries

Afterword

A dictionary will tell you it’s a concise statement of a principle or general truth. William Stafford, lauded poet and longtime Lewis & Clark professor, crafted thousands of them during his 50 years of daily writing. He called an aphorism the kind of statement that “delivers groceries.”